FoodBanter.com - View Single Post - Thin Pizza Crust -- With Yeast???

Damaeus[_2_]

Reading from news:rec.food.cooking,
(Victor Sack) posted:

> It is unlikely to be yeast. Pizza romana has a very thin, slightly
> crispy crust, yet it is made with brewer's yeast in a traditional way,
> i.e. letting the dough rise, etc. The dough mix of a pizza romana
> contains some oil, which is not allowed in the dough of a pizza
> napoletana (which has oil just as a part of the topping), for example.
> Apparently, this contributes to making the pizza slightly crispy. Also,
> once you have finished manipulating the pizza, stretching it and quickly
> putting on the topping(s) being the last step, it should be baked at
> once. Do not let it rest for any time at all. The oven should be very
> hot indeed, which a typical home oven is not. Home ovens can only be
> used for pizza approximations.

The only thing that irritates me about baking pizza at home is trying to
brown the cheese on top. The cheese wants to try to brown around the
edges before the cheese in the middle even looks like it wants to brown at
all. And if I try to let the cheese brown in the middle, it'll be TOO
brown around the edge. I bake on the bottom oven rack, because baking in
the middle seems to make the crust not as done on the bottom. It's not
raw, by any means, but I like a bit of brownness on the bottom. Sometimes
I'll switch the broiler on and put the pizza on the top rack for about a
minute to try to get a few brown spots on top and sizzle away some of the
liquid that might accumulate from the onions and green peppers.

One thing I do want to do is start using some mozarella I shred myself
instead of using the shredded-in-the-bag kind. That stuff includes some
kind of anti-caking agent (cornstarch?) which makes the melted cheese a
bit dryer than what you'd get from a pizzera. Unfortunately the cheese
shredder attachment I got for the Kitchen-Aid stand mixer is screwed up.
The metal piece that goes between the shredder and the mixer somehow
became utterly stuck and I can't get it out. I bought the damned thing
because I was tired of breaking the shredders provided with food
processors, and I only got to use it about three or four times before IT
got messed up. I didn't think you could go wrong with a Kitchen Aid
attachment, but it certainly turned to hell with me.

If I ever get another stand mixer, I'm going to try to get one that's
better than a Kitchen-Aid, and with a bigger bowl. When you've got a
recipe that calls for even 6 cups of flour, this thing is just to small
and the engine seems too weak to handle it.

Damaeus

Damaeus